Crime fears over planned children’s home
Worries over crime and anti-social behaviour have resulted in more than 250 people objecting to plans to turn a Bloxwich house into a children’s care home.
Walsall Council’s planning committee is set to discuss a retrospective application by New Era Residence to convert property on The Oaks at a meeting on Thursday.
The applicants said the home would support no more than two youngsters with learning difficulties and would be staffed round the clock.
But the plan sparked strong opposition with a petition collecting 172 signatures, 103 letters of objections and concerns from ward councillors Brad Allen and Louise Harrison.
Members of the committee are being grant permission for the scheme, subject to conditions being finalised.
Councillor Allen said work had already started on the property and is being advertised on the company’s website.
In a report to committee, officers said agents for New Era Residence explained the company has erroneously believed a small care home would not require planning permission, which prompted this retrospective application.
Officers added any work carried out is done so a the applicant’s own risk.
Other concerns raised by Councillors Allen and Harrison included fear of crime and anti-social behaviour, increase in noise, highways safety and inadequate parking.
The petition and many objectors also expressed fears crime would increase if the care home was allowed to open causing anxiety to nearby elderly residents as well as exposing the children to harm themselves.
Other reasons for opposing included increased parking problems, noise, highways safety, an increase in drug use and the loss of a house.
But officers said no evidence had been provided to substantiate claims the children’s care home would cause an increase in crime, anti-social behaviour and drug abuse.
They also added the highways authority had not raised any objections to the proposal, while a number of other reasons for objecting were not material planning considerations.
They said: “It is considered that the application should be recommended for approval. The economic and social benefits in this instance would not have an unacceptable impact on the environment.”
